Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Read online

  18. — TO RUFINUS.

  False, without doubt, is the vulgar belief that the wills made by men reflect their characters, since Domitius Tullus has shown himself a far better man at his death than in his life. For though he had held himself out as a bait to fortune-hunters, he left as his heiress a daughter who was common to himself and his brother, that is to say, she was his brother’s child and he had adopted her. Upon his grandsons he bestowed many very acceptable legacies, and even one on his great-grandson. In short, all his dispositions are replete with just affection, and they seem all the more so in that they were unexpected. Accordingly, various are the comments which are being made all over the city: some speak of him as a hypocrite, without gratitude and without memory, and, while they inveigh against him, betray their own selves by their disgraceful avowals, complaining as they do of a man who was a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, just as though he had been childless: others, on the contrary, laud him in this very particular that he has frustrated the impudent expectations of men whom thus to deceive, in the present state of society, is an act of prudence. They even add that he was not free to leave any other will behind him; for that he did not so much bequeath property to his daughter as restore that by which he had been enriched through the medium of this same daughter. For, Curtilius Mancia, detesting his son-in-law, Domitius Lucanus (the brother of Tullus), constituted the daughter of the latter — his own grandchild — his heiress, subject to the condition of her having been emancipated from the control of her father. Her father had emancipated her, upon which her uncle had adopted her, and the intention of the will having been cheated in this fashion, one brother — they being joint-owners of their estate — got the emancipated daughter back under the parental authority of the other brother, thanks to his fraudulent adoption, and that too with the most extensive property.

  In other cases it seemed as it were the fate of these brothers to become rich even against the strongest inclinations of those who had made them so. Indeed, Domitius Afer, who adopted them, left a will declared before witnesses eighteen years previously, and so highly disapproved by him at a subsequent period that he caused their father’s property to be confiscated. Strange, ruthlessness on his part, and strange good fortune on theirs! Faithlessness in him to cut off from the roll of citizens a man who was his partner in such a matter as that of children: good fortune for them to have as successor in the place of father the very man who had taken off their father. But this property derived from Afer, together with everything else which he had acquired in company with his brother, Tullus was bound to transmit to the daughter of his brother, who had constituted him sole heir and preferred him to his daughter, in order to conciliate his favour. The more praiseworthy is this will which affection, good faith, and honour have dictated; in which, finally, all degrees of relationship are acknowledged according to their several obligations, and acknowledgment is made to the testator’s wife as well. She takes some charming country residences and a large sum of money, does this most excellent and long-suffering of wives: ay, and one who deserved all the better of her husband in proportion as she was blamed for marrying him. For this lady, who was of illustrious birth and spotless character, in the decline of life, after a long widowhood, and having aforetime borne children, was thought to have acted with no very good taste in prosecuting a marriage with a rich old man, such a prey to disease that he might well have been an object of disgust even to a wife whom he had wedded in his youth and strength. In fact, he was crippled and powerless in all his limbs, and could enjoy his vast wealth with his eyes alone: nor could he move on his couch even, save by the help of others. Moreover (indelicate as well as pitiable to relate) he had his teeth washed and brushed for him. He was often heard to say himself, when complaining of the miseries forced on him by his infirmities, that he “daily licked the fingers of his slaves.” Yet he lived on, and desired to live, kept up principally by his wife, who, by her steadfastness, had turned her fault in entering on such a marriage into a source of glory.

  You have now all the talk of the town, for Tullus constitutes all the talk. The sale of his effects is looked for. Such indeed were his stores, that he has adorned the most extensive gardens, on the same day that he bought them, with statues in great profusion and of great antiquity; he had as many works of the highest art lying neglected in storerooms. In your turn, if there be anything in your parts worth a letter, don’t think it a trouble to write. For not only are men’s ears gladdened by news, but also we are instructed by examples to regulate our lives.

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  19. — TO MAXIMUS.

  My delight and my solace is in literary pursuits. There is nothing so joyful that it is not made more joyful, nothing so sad that it is not made less sad, through their means. Hence, when disordered by the sickness of my wife and the critical condition of my servants — indeed, by the deaths of some of them — I fled for refuge to my one comfort in sorrow — my studies. These furnish me with a keener sense of misfortunes, but at the same time with the power of bearing them more patiently. Now, it is my habit, when proposing to give anything to the public, to test it previously by the help of my friends’ judgment, and above all of yours. Accordingly, now, if ever, apply yourself to the book which you will receive with this letter; for I fear that I in my sorrowful condition have not sufficiently applied myself to it. I was indeed able to command my grief so far as to write, but not so as to write with a disengaged and cheerful mind. Now, as joy is the profit derived from letters, so do letters in their turn derive a profit from cheerfulness.

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  20. — TO GALLUS.

  Objects such as we are in the habit of undertaking journeys and traversing the sea to make acquaintance with, we neglect when they are situated under our eyes; whether it has been so provided by nature, that, while careless of what is close to us, we run after what is distant, or because the desire for all objects languishes where the opportunity is easy; or else that we defer, as being sure to see them often, sights which it is given us to enjoy whenever we choose. Whatever be the reason, there are a quantity of things in our city, and the neighbourhood of the city, which we do not even know by hearsay, let alone eyesight. Yet if Achaia, Egypt, Asia, had produced these, or any other land fruitful in marvels, and giving them repute too, we should have heard all about, and read all about and explored them. What, at any rate, I had never heard of or seen, I for my part lately heard of and saw at the same time.

  My wife’s grandfather had pressed me to make an inspection of his estate near Ameria, As I was going over it, a lake lying under us was pointed out to me, named Vadimon; at the same time some incredible circumstances connected with it were related. I reached the lake itself. It is rounded into the shape of a horizontal wheel, regular on all sides, without a bay or obliquity of any kind; everything is measured to scale and even, as though hollowed and cut out by the hand of an artist. The colour of the water is lighter than dark blue but deeper than bluish green. It has an odour and a taste of sulphur, and the healing property of mending broken articles. Its size is small, yet such that it can feel the winds and swell into waves. There is no ship on it (for it is sacred), but floating on it are islands, all of them grassy with reeds and rushes, and other herbage which the swampy soil in its productiveness, or the banks of the lake themselves, bring forth. Each of them has its individual shape and dimensions, but all have their outer edges worn, in consequence of frequently striking either against the shore or against each other, and so rubbing and getting rubbed. All of them are of a like elevation and buoyancy, since their roots descend but a little way below the surface, after the fashion of a ship’s keel. These roots can be seen on every side, suspended and at the same time submerged in the water. Occasionally these islands are joined and coupled together, resembling a continent; occasionally they are dispersed by discordant winds; not infrequently, left to themselves, they float in single tranquillity. Of
ten the smaller ones hang on to the larger, like little boats on to ships of burden; often larger and smaller ones take to a trial, as it were, of each other’s speed; then, again, all of them, driven upon the same part of the shore, form, where they have stopped, a promontory, and, sometimes here, sometimes there, conceal or restore to view portions of the lake. It is only when they are in the middle that they do not contract its circumference. It is certain that cattle in pursuit of herbage are in the habit of advancing into these islands, fancying them the edge of the lake, and do not perceive that the soil is moveable till reft from the shore — put on hoard and shipped, so to speak — they see with affright the lake all round them: presently going ashore wherever the wind has carried them, they no more know that they have disembarked than they knew that they had embarked. This same lake discharges itself into a river, which, after presenting itself to the eyes for a short time, loses itself underground, and flows on out of sight. If anything has been thrown into it before its disappearance it will preserve and reproduce the object.

  All this I have written to you, believing that it would be no less new and no less agreeable to you than it was to me. For as with me, so with you, too, nothing is so delightful as the works of nature.

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  21. — TO ARRIANUS.

  Just as in life, so in literature, I deem it the most excellent course, and the one most in accord with human nature, to mingle the grave with the gay, lest the former should degenerate into morbidness and the latter into sauciness. Led by this consideration, I vary my more serious works with sportive and jocular effusions. For the production in public of these latter, I chose the most fitting time as well as place, and — that they might without delay grow accustomed to a hearing from persons with nothing else to do, and at the dinner-table — in the month of July (when, for the most part, there is an interval of rest from the lawsuits), I arranged my friends with seats furnished with desks in front of the dining-couches. It so chanced that, on the morning of that day, I was unexpectedly called to assist a friend in court, and this furnished me with a ground for making some prefatory remarks. For I entreated that no one would charge me with want of respect for the work in hand, because, when intending to recite (even though only to friends, and to a small audience, which means to friends again), I had not refrained from the courts and from business. I added that, even in the matter of my writings, I followed this order of preferring duty to pleasure, the serious to the agreeable, and of writing for my friends first, for myself afterwards.

  My book was composed of various little pieces, in various metres; for thus it is that we who have not much confidence in our genius are wont to avoid the risk of surfeiting people. I recited two days. The approval of my audience exacted this of me; and yet, though other readers skip certain parts, and take credit for skipping them, I pass over nothing, and even aver to my audiences that I pass over nothing. Indeed, I read the whole that I may correct the whole; and this cannot be the case with those who recite extracts. But, you will say that the latter course is more modest, and perhaps more respectful. Yes; but the former is the more straightforward and the more friendly. For he is friendly who thinks the friendship felt for him to be such that he is not in dread of being wearisome. Otherwise, what is the use of intimates if they only come together for the sake of their own amusement? He is a mere fop, and resembles a stranger, who would rather hear his friend’s good book than make it a good one.

  I do not doubt that, in accordance with your usual affection for me, you will desire to read, as soon as possible, this newly compounded book. You shall read it, but in a revised form, for this was the object of my recitation. Yet you are already acquainted with many parts of it. These, subsequently either improved, or — which occasionally happens through long delay — altered for the worse, you will discover again, in a new form as it were, and rewritten. For where many changes have been made, even what is left seems to have undergone a change likewise.

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  22. — TO GEMINUS.

  You know them, don’t you, those men who, slaves to every evil passion, are as indignant at the vices of others as though they envied them, and who are for punishing most severely the persons whom they imitate most closely; whereas, even to those who need no one’s indulgence, nothing is more becoming than leniency. More than this, I esteem him the most excellent and the most faultless who so forgives others as though he himself sinned daily, and so abstains from sins as though he forgave no one. Accordingly let us hold to this, in private, in public, in every relation of life; to be implacable to ourselves and easy of entreaty even to those who are unable to make allowances for any but themselves. Let us commit to memory what one of the mildest, and, on that account, among others, one of the greatest of men, Thrasea, used frequently to say “He who hates vices hates mankind.”

  You will perhaps ask what has moved me to write thus. A certain person recently — but it will be better to tell you when we meet; and yet, on second thoughts, not even then. For I fear that by inveighing against and censuring and recapitulating what I disapprove, I may be violating the very precepts which I am giving at this moment. Let the man, whoever and whatever he is, be nameless; by making him known, example would profit nothing; by leaving him unknown, good-nature will profit much.

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  23. — TO MARCELLINUS.

  All literary pursuits, all serious occupations, all amusements, have been banished, driven out, rooted from my mind by the poignant grief which the death of Julius Avitus has caused me. It was at my house that he put on the Latus Clavus. I assisted him with my support when he was a candidate for office; add to this, that he so loved and revered me that he treated me as the moulder of his character — as his master, so to speak. A rare thing this in the case of our young men. For how few of them will yield, as being inferior, either to the age or the authority of another? They are all at once wise; they all at once know everything; they revere no one; they imitate no one, and are indeed themselves their own models. Not so Avitus, whose chief wisdom was in esteeming others wiser than himself, whose chief erudition was in his desire to learn. He was always seeking some advice, either on the subject of his studies or the duties of life, and he always went away with a sense of being made better. And so he was, either from what he had heard, or at any rate from having inquired. What deference he paid to that most accomplished man Servianus, when the latter was Legate and he was military tribune. He so appreciated and at the same time captivated Servianus that in his march across from Germania to Pannonia he followed him, not as being one of his army, but as a companion and personal attendant. Such was his industry, such his unassuming character, than in his capacity of Quæstor he was no less pleasant and agreeable than useful to his Consuls, of whom he served several. How active, how indefatigable he was in his pursuit of this very office of Ædile, from the enjoyment of which he has been prematurely snatched away! And this it is which greatly aggravates my grief. There present themselves to my eyes his vain labours and fruitless applications, and the honour which he succeeded in deserving only. There returns to my mind that Latus Clavus assumed in my house; those first, those last efforts of mine on his behalf; the discourses, the consultations which we held together. I am touched by his own youth; I am touched by the misfortune suffered by his family.

  He had a mother of great age, a wife whom he had married in her maidenhood a year before, a daughter not long born to him. So many hopes, so many joys did a single day turn to mourning! Just nominated Ædile, a new-made husband, a new-made father, he has left behind him a dignity never assumed, a childless mother, a widowed wife, an infant daughter who never knew her father. My sorrow is augmented by the fact that it was during my absence from him, and when I was unprepared for the impending misfortune, that I learnt at one and the same time his illness and his decease. Such is my anguish while writing on this subject, and on this subjec
t alone. For indeed just now I can neither think nor speak of anything else.

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  24. — TO MAXIMUS.

  My affection for you compels me, not to instruct you, for indeed you need no instructor, yet to remind you to bear in memory and practice what you already know, else it were better unknown. Reflect that you are sent to the province of Achaia, that true and genuine Greece, in which civilisation, letters, and even the fruits of the earth, are believed to have been discovered; that you are sent to order the status of free communities — that is, to men who are in the highest sense,. men, to freemen who are in the highest sense free, who have preserved their natural rights by their virtues, their services, their friendship for us, and, lastly, by compacts and religious sanctions. Respect the gods, their founders, and the names of their gods. Respect their ancient glory, and their very age itself, venerable in the case of men, sacred in the case of cities. Let their antiquity, their great deeds, their fables even, find honour with you. Rifle nothing from any man’s dignity or liberty, or even vainglory. Keep before your eyes that this is the land which sent us our legislation, which gave laws, not to the conquered, but to those who asked for them; that this is Athens to which you go; that this is Lacedaemon which you govern: that to rob these of the shadow still left them, and relics of their liberty, would be harsh, cruel, and barbarous. You see that doctors — although in sickness there is no difference between slave and free — yet treat freemen with greater tenderness and consideration. (Bear in mind what each community has been, not (with the view of despising it) what it has ceased to be. Far from you be all arrogance and asperity. Do not be afraid of contempt. Can he be contemned who holds the supreme power and the fasces, unless he be a mean, paltry creature, who begins by contemning himself. Power tries its strength ill by injuring others; veneration is ill acquired by terror; and love is far more efficacious for obtaining one’s ends than fear. For, fear vanishes when you have taken your departure, love remains; and as the former turns to hatred, so does the latter to reverence. You, for your part, ought assuredly again and again (for I will repeat myself) to call to mind the title of your office, and to interpret for your own self what and how great a matter it is “to order the status of free communities.” For what can be more to the interest of the citizens than order of government? Or what more precious than freedom? Again, what a disgrace if order be exchanged for anarchy and freedom for servitude! Add to this, that you have yourself for a rival; you are weighted by the admirable report of your Quæstorship which you brought back from Bithynia; you are weighted by the testimony of the Emperor, by your Tribuneship and your Prætorship, and by this very legation which has been conferred on you as a kind of recompense. Hence you must the more earnestly strive that you be not reputed to have acted with greater courtesy, integrity, and judgment in a distant province than in a nearer one; among those who are our subjects than among freemen; when despatched by lot than when despatched by the result of deliberate choice; when inexperienced and unknown than when tried and approved; since, as you have often heard and read, it is, in a general way, more disgraceful to lose reputation than not to acquire it.